Technical Problems Plague Obamacare Website On Deadline Day

A man fills out an information card during an Affordable Care Act outreach event hosted by Planned Parenthood for the Latino community in Los Angeles Sept. 28, 2013.
Reuters

Update at 2:10 p.m. EDT: Health and Human Services announced that glitches preventing new users from creating accounts have been resolved.

The HealthCare.gov website is experiencing some technical problems that are preventing it from accepting new applications. The current problems are associated with “record” traffic from users trying to enroll for coverage.

This level of traffic, according to officials, is preventing first-time users from accessing enrollment and the site’s application tools. CMS spokesman Aaron Albright told the media that more than 100,000 people [were] concurrently in the system as of noon Monday.

“The tech team monitoring HealthCare.gov in real time has identified an issue with users creating new accounts,” he said. “The application and enrollment tools are unavailable to new users at the moment.”

The tech team has been trying to resolve the issue as quick as possible, Albright added, and those who are already in the system can complete their enrollment.

More than 6 million people have already enrolled for coverage through the Affordable Care Act’s marketplace. March 31 is the deadline to sign up for coverage online. However, the administration will accept paper applications until April 7.

The Obamacare website has been plagued with glitches and technical problems since it launched on Oct. 1.